This fall, Fox will no longer have WWE SmackDown in primetime on Fridays. With the window opening up, Fox is filling it with college football in the fall.
The company announced its decision on Thursday.
FOX is football 🏈
Mark your calendars – this fall, premier primetime college football hits Friday nights on FOX 👀
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— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) March 7, 2024
Fox exec Michael Mulvihill says the company is aiming to have the top game each Friday, which doesn’t seem difficult given how few games air on Friday throughout the season.
“FOX is football, and our new Friday night package will make FOX the leader in America’s game throughout the weekend,” said Michael Mulvihill, President, Insight and Analytics, FOX Corporation. “We’ve built our collegiate business by seizing opportunities in previously underutilized timeslots, first with BIG NOON SATURDAY and now on Friday nights. Our goal this fall is to have the No. 1 college football game on both Fridays and Saturdays and the top NFL game on Sundays.”
A schedule for Fox’s Friday night games has yet to be revealed.
Last fall, following SmackDown‘s departure, we mused about a possible Fox Friday sports showcase. Airing college football games on Fridays seems like a step in that direction.
And while we don’t know which games will be airing on Friday nights, we do know that the Big Ten will have at least nine Friday night games this season, which will help carry much of the schedule.
The bar to becoming the top Friday game of the week isn’t very high. Outside of Black Friday, roughly a dozen Friday games in 2023 topped a million viewers, led by Colorado-Stanford in Week 7 with 3.29 million viewers.
Over the years, several Big Ten schools complained about playing Friday night games, including Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. If those schools are still against the idea of Friday night college football, Fox’s Friday package could have fewer marquee names leading the line.
